


Eleanor and Park [College Years]

by mutant_superwholock117



Category: Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: F/M, No more heartbreak, Romance, Sequel, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 03:12:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12050082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutant_superwholock117/pseuds/mutant_superwholock117
Summary: I looooooooove the book Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. But the ending killed me. So I'm continuing on to the story to give these characters the happy ending I want them to have.





	Eleanor and Park [College Years]

**Author's Note:**

> I know I probably can't do justice to Rainbow' characters or her writing style, but hopefully y'all still enjoy. <3

**Park**

_ Fucking rain. _ Park thinks as he runs through the street, trying not to slip on the wet sidewalk and break his neck.

He used to like the rain. He thought it was peaceful.

That was when he still had the Impala, and didn’t have to take the bus everywhere. He missed that car. It made going places so much easier.

And had a lot of good memories too…

Park stopped that train of thought before it could get any farther. He couldn’t think of that night. Not now. He was on his way to an interview, and thinking about her right now wouldn’t do him any good.

He still thought about her of course. Eleanor. There was no way he couldn’t think about her. Everyday was constant flashbacks-like in the comics he used to read with her.

He hadn’t read a comic in a really long time. Since before his high school graduation even.

Park slows down and glances down at his watch, 11:57. He had three minutes before the bus came and left, taking his possible new job with him.

He ran faster, tightening his grip on the strap of his bag so he doesn’t lose it. He couldn’t lose it. Especially not today. Today he had a letter for Eleanor that he was going to mail after the interview. He had been waiting to get a letter from her for weeks, and had finally gotten it yesterday.

Park wished she’d send more. He always responded to hers as soon as he could; as if this would make her respond faster. It never did though.

He’s down the street when he sees the bus pull up. Waving his arms, he runs harder. The driver must see him, because the bus doesn’t go anywhere.

Park slides to a stop in front of the bus doors, and hauls himself inside. He pays, and then looks around for a seat as he walks down the aisle.

Full.

Full.

Full.

Fuck.

Park feels the bus lurch as the driver starts the bus. He grabs onto two seats, his bag hitting  a man's shoulder.

“Sorry.” Park mumbles. But the man didn’t even flinch.

He keeps going, towards the back of the bus. He’s tempted to just sit in the aisle, when something catches his eye.

Red hair. A lot of it. All the way back, the second to last seat.

“Hey kid! Sit down!” Park hears the bus driver yell. But he doesn’t even hear him. He keeps going.

_ It’s not possible. _ He forces himself to think.  _ It's not her. It’s not Eleanor. _

Eleanor…

Standing behind him until he turned around.

Lying next to him just before he woke up.

Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough.

Eleanor, who had ruined everything.

Eleanor..gone?

Park inches closer, desperately hoping yet trying not to at the same time. It couldn’t be her, right?

“Hey you! Sit down!”

There’s no way she could be here right?

“ _ Sit down! _ ”

It had to be someone else with hair like that...right?

Wrong.

 

**Eleanor**

Park made the exact face she thought he would.

He stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes got wide. His lips-God, those soft looking lips-parted as he stared down at her. She was tempted to reach out and tap his chin so he’d close his mouth. That’s all she’d been wanting to do during the entire ride down here. Be able to reach out and touch him again. His honey colored skin. Even if that was the last touch she ever got, it would be worth the pain later, getting that one last touch.

Eleanor hadn’t expected to see him on the bus though. She has thought she’d at least get the walk to his house to figure out what she wanted to say. Now she had no idea what to do.

“Will you find a fucking seat already, kid?” The bus driver yells again. But Park just stares. His body frozen and his eyes glued to Eleanor.

The bus suddenly stops. “ _ Sit down! _ ”

“Sit down.” Eleanor tells him.

Park looks up at the bus driver and then back to her.

Eleanor roll sher eyebrows. “Jesus-fuck” she grumbles. “ _ Sit down  _ Park.”

Finally he seems to shake himself out of his daze and he practically falls down into the seat next to her.

 

**Park**

She was the same. God, she was exactly the same.

Well, almost. Her clothes weren’t as baggy. And she didn’t look mad anymore. She looked almost...happy.

But her face was covered with freckles. It looked like she had even more, if that was possible.

“Hi Park.” she said, and  _ Jesus _ , her voice. He barely could breath.

He couldn’t even move, Afraid that if he did, she’d disappear again. And maybe this time not come back.

“Jesus, Park. If I knew seeing me was going to turn your brain to absolute mush, I would have stayed home.”

Her sarcasm snaps him out of it. “Eleanor?”

Park hadn’t said her name out loud in over a couple years. He would whisper it, sometimes late at night. When the memories wouldn’t stop and the music wouldn’t help, and he felt like he was going crazy.

Saying it now gave him a sort of thrill. Like an adrenaline rush you’d get from a roller coaster. When you’re moving up, up, up, slowly. Waiting for the fall…

“Yeah.” Eleanor said. “It’s me.”

Then she smiled.

And there came the fall.

 

**Eleanor**

Park was still beautiful. Even more beautiful now than he was two years ago.

After trying not to think about Park at all, she had tried to remember him as much as she could. She didn’t want to forget that face. She couldn’t, even when she was trying.

But her memory hadn’t done him justice at all.

His skin was still golden, his hair still black and wavy in his eyes. He didn’t have the eyeliner on, but he did have earings now. Even without the makeup though, he was still striking and she couldn’t take her eyes away from his.

Stupid perfect asian kid.

 

**Park**

“But, how are you here?” Park asks, his brain still not caught up with everything.

“I bought a bus ticket, got on the bus, and sat in it until it brought me here.”

Now Park rolls his eyes, “I mean. Why? What-what made you come back?” He holds his breath, hoping for an answer he wasn’t sure he would get.

 

**Eleanor**

Eleanor had gotten better with words over the past couple years. Her first year at college had helped with that. She had even made some friends.

But it seemed that Park still had a way of tying up her tongue.

So instead of trying to find words, she reaches out and takes his hand.

Eleanor's eyes fall shut for a second and she hears Park suck in a sharp breath.

“This.” she whispers. This is what she had come back for.

_ Park _

“You.”

 

**Park**

Park wasn’t sure if he grabbed Eleanor, or if she leaned in towards him; but he was suddenly cupping the back of her neck with his free hand, and their foreheads were leaning against each others.

There had never been hands like Eleanor’s, and there never could be another pair of hands like Eleanor’s. Her hand was special. A treasure.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” he whispers, finding her ear under all that hair. That beautiful mess of hair.

“Me neither.” she says. “I almost didn’t come.”

“I’m glad you did.” he says into her hair.

“Me too.”

**Eleanor**

They ride the bus past the next stop, and the next, and then the next...sometimes talking, but mostly just staring at each other.

Eleanor was absorbing everything about him. Being with Park again was like being an ex-heroin addict who was using again for the first time in years. Not that she knew what heroin felt like, but she doubted it could feel as good as this did.

 

**Park**

He wanted to ask her so many things. But he remembered how she used to get when he would start asking questions. And he didn’t want to do anything to scare her away.

Park wanted her to stay.

 

**Eleanor**

They rode the bus all the way to the end, and then payed the driver again so they could keep riding.

It was like if they got off the bus they both would disappear from each other.

Eleanor hadn’t let go of Park’s hand yet. And he hadn’t let go either. He kept moving his thumb over her palm, his fingers trailing over the back of her hand. Like a blind man trying to read braille.

From the way he was looking at her though, there was no possibility of him being blind.

“I still can’t believe you’re here.” he said, his voice soft, gliding over her. Bringing back so many memories and feelings.

“Me neither.” she said, her eyes on their hands. “It feels so...weird. Like we’re in high school again.”

“Thank God we’re not.”

Eleanor laughed. “Yeah. College is much better.”

Park looked at her in surprise. “You’re in college?”

She nods. “Yeah. Just finished my first year.”

“Me too.”

 

**Park**

It was weird, thinking of Eleanor at college. Not that he thought she couldn’t do it. She was one of the smartest people he had ever met. What was weird was imagining her at school, going to classes, meeting people, and him not being there for any of it.

Eventually the bus driver kicks them off. So they end up walking around downtown. It felt so strange, to Park at least, to be walking around with Eleanor in the last place they had a good night at.

Eleanor seemed to be thinking something along the same lines, because she couldn’t stop looking around at everything.

“Hasn’t changed much.” she commented.

“Neither have you.” Park responded.

Eleanor smiled up at him and he got that rollercoaster feeling in his stomach again. She was smiling a lot today. More than she ever used to in one day.

And he couldn’t get enough of it. He couldn’t get enough of  _ her. Eleanor _ . Standing right in front of him.

It occurs to him -not for the first time today-that he hasn’t kissed her yet.

 

**Eleanor**

She was trying not to think about why Park hadn't kissed her yet.

Not that she had expected him to when she planned this trip. She wasn’t even sure he would talk to her.

But he did, and he was, and he kept looking at her like...like he used to.

When they were on the school bus and she would say something to make him laugh.

When he would catch her humming the newest song he had shown her.

When they would argue over whether Magneto was really the villain.

The first time she let him kiss her.

And there had been a few times so far today when she thought, maybe. Maybe he wanted to do it again?

They ended up at Central Park. Eleanor tries to keep herself from smiling too big.

But she doesn’t do too good of a job because soon Park is asking her what she’s thinking.

 

**Park**

That smile. That smile she had that turned her face from serious to bright in a split second.

Either was beautiful. But the smile was so rare he loved every chance he had to see it.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks.

Eleanor shakes her head. “Just...remembering.”

“Anything in particular?” Park asks.

Eleanor looks up at him, her smile slightly sheepish. “This is where you asked me to the prom.”

It was such a small thing. Prom. Not a big deal, really.

And yet it hit Park harder than he expected it to, or than it probably should have.

Having Eleanor, in a prom dress -with her hair done by his mom of course-on his arm. The two of them dancing.

Would Eleanor have wanted to dance? Knowing how she was then, he’d be lucky to get one slow song out of her. They’d probably spend the rest of the time in the back, sitting together and making fun of the awful music.

It really was awful.

But that would have been fine. That would have been perfect, because it would have been a night with Eleanor. Away from her stepdad.

Just the two of them.

Something they never got to have.

Trying to keep his voice light he says, “This is also where you agreed to go with me to prom.”

“I would have.” she looks at him curiously. “Did you end up going?”

Park nods, staring down. He didn’t want to tell her he went with someone that wasn’t her. Even if he hadn’t done anything with her. He didn’t want Eleanor thinking he had replaced her.

Because Eleanor was anything but replaceable.

“I went next year.” she says.

They walk over to the fountain in silence, and sit down. Not too far, but not too close from each other either.

Park, unable to meet Eleanor’s eyes, stares down at her sneakers instead.

He hears her chuckle suddenly. He looks up to see her looking at the geese.

“Swans.” she turns to grin at him.

And it’s that grin, that small twist of lips that makes him come undone. That makes him move closer to her and takes her hand in his. Warmth spreads through his body instantly.

“I missed you a lot.” he says, his voice soft. “Every day.”

Eleanor bites her lip, but meets his eyes and then smiles slightly. “I missed you too Park.”

 

**Eleanor**

She’s not sure who leaned forward first, but in a moment his lips are on hers.

And it’s like she’s back in highschool, the very first time Park ever kissed her.

It feels like her brain starts melting out her ears; and her heart starts beating so fast she’s afraid it’ll explode out of her chest like  bugs bunny cartoon.

She feels Park’s hand tighten around hers. As if it has mind of it’s own, her free hand comes up to cup Park’s face. His skin is smooth and soft underneath her fingertips.

Eleanor pulls him in even closer, kissing him back like she wasn't afraid of forgetting how to do it after all these years.

When they both couldn't breathe, they pull away, but stay close.

After being so far from each other for so long. They never want to separate again.

Eleanor grins, her lips still so close to his the small action causes both their mouths to brush.

“I know.”

And she also knew, as Park laughed, that she would never have to miss him again.

“I love you too Park.”


End file.
